Aftermath Of A Kiss
by howardtduck48
Summary: Maeve told Otis she loved him and kissed him. This is the aftermath.


**Author's Notes : I wrote the beginning of this as a second attempt to get into Chapter 6 of "These Are The Days Of Their Lives" but it didn't fit so I threw it away and started again. So consider it an AU to an AU, if you like. Or a shaggy dog story.**

**I beg your forgiveness for publishing it.**

* * *

**Aftermath Of A Kiss**

Otis walked briskly out of the old toilet block, head down and face set, and ignored Eric leaning against the wall by the door.

Eric recoiled with surprise and hurried to catch up to his best friend, smiling broadly. "That was quick. Did you finish?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Otis said, tersely.

"Did you come, Otis?" Eric asked in frustration.

"That is a completely inappropriate question, Eric."

Eric's face fell. "Oh, don't tell me you alphabetised your music collection again?"

Otis kept walking briskly, head still down, mouth twitching, eyes glowering.

"She's your girlfriend now. You're supposed to be able to have a wank about her if she's actually your girlfriend."

"Will you keep your voice down?" Otis hissed.

"If she isn't there to wank you herself."

Otis stopped on the road outside the wall surrounding the toilet block and looked left and right and agonised over the direction to take. Should he escape home and tell Maeve he had a diarrhea attack or should he meet her at the lockers as he promised and she would know because it was written all over his face?

Eric stopped beside Otis and looked in both directions then looked at his friend. "You should have let her know and she could have given you a handy in the toilet block. That's so much more excitingly dirty than a wank by yourself."

Otis stepped towards the right and stopped.

"Not that I would know, of course," Eric continued, hoping Otis hadn't been paying complete attention. "About either."

Otis turned and took three steps toward home and stopped.

"What is wrong with you, man?" Eric asked, incredulously. "You have just been kissed by the hottest girl in school—"

Otis turned back toward the school and glanced at Eric. "I thought you said Maeve was the coolest girl in school."

"She is," Eric nodded. "She is both the hottest and the coolest girl in school at the same time. She's multitalented."

Otis turned around and kept pacing between home and the school. "Oh, so Maeve is the most lukewarm girl in school? I'll let her know you said that. It'll beat the scary fish comment."

Otis kept pacing and as Eric watched he finally let himself see the genuine distress his best friend was suffering and let his exuberance fade and his voice lower and he stepped forward to touch Otis gently on the shoulder and spoke with genuine concern. "Otis, what's wrong?"

Otis flinched at the touch and stepped back and seemed to dance a little jig and blurted, "I just masturbated while thinking of Maeve and the way she kissed me and the way her body felt and the way her body looks sometimes and—"

"It felt good, didn't it?" Eric said, triumphantly.

Otis looked directly at Eric and said, forlornly. "Yes! No! It felt wrong. I objectified her. I reduced her just to her physical characteristics and wasn't thinking about her as a whole person with dreams and desires and interests and concerns and-"

"Listen, man. Maeve's the feminist so you need to talk to her about the difference between having sexual thoughts about your girlfriend and objectifying her because I don't think you've quite got it."

"I can't talk to her about that, Eric."

"Look, she probably already knows you just had a wank about her. It's no big deal to her. She left you alone so you could just get on with it."

Otis looked at Eric, horrified.

"I mean, it was pushing against her. She couldn't have missed it."

Otis spun around and started walking toward home.

"Hey, at least you know it works," Eric yelled after him.

Otis kept walking.

"You… wouldn't really… tell her about… the… lukewarm thing… would you?" Eric called, just a touch nervously.

* * *

Otis saw her standing by her locker waiting for him and took a deep breath. Eric had helped calm his nerves and convince him that there was no way Maeve knew exactly what had occurred and that even if she suspected she would be perfectly fine with it and probably suspected it had already happened a few times while Otis had been thinking about her so he should just go be with his new girlfriend.

He heard someone make a crude comment as they passed her and watched as she gave them only a single-barrel since they weren't worth a full load and then her eyes met his across the hallway and her face relaxed into a soft smile.

He still couldn't believe how lucky he was as she walked toward him, never breaking his gaze and he hoped recent events weren't written all over his face.

"Hello again, boyfriend."

"Hello again, girl… friend."

She shook her head and smiled and gave him points for effort. "You'll have to keep practicing that."

They started walking along the hallway in unison.

"So, you didn't break yourself, then?" she asked.

He looked at her in puzzled surprise and really liked the phrasing. "No."

"Good."

They swerved each side of a student absorbed in his phone without either of them breaking ahead or falling behind.

"Did you freak out?" she asked.

"A little."

"Did you faint?"

"No."

"Did you have a panic attack?"

"Sort of."

"Feeling better now?"

"Much."

"Haven't changed your mind?"

"No."

"You're absolutely freaking out inside right now, aren't you, Otis?"

"Complete brain explosion."

They turned a corner into a new hallway without breaking stride.

"So you really didn't pick up on it?"

"I had no idea, Maeve."

"I was dropping all these major hints."

"Completely oblivious."

"I was straining my brain trying to figure out how to tell you."

"Never suspected a thing."

"I thought of showing you my boobs but that would have done you in, wouldn't it?"

"Pine coffin time."

"So what did you do to relax yourself?" she asked as innocently as she could.

He recoiled and refused to look at her and said, airily, "Oh, deep breathing exercises. Alphabetized my music collection. That sort of thing."

She nodded understandingly.

"I thought you would have had a wank. That's what I did."

* * *

Author's Notes: Ncuti Gatwa was great as Eric, wasn't he?


End file.
